Second Grave on the Left

by Darynda Jones

  “Angel, you little shit.”

  He laughed aloud as I examined my filthy hands. “That was awesome.”

  Freaking thirteen-year-olds. “I knew I should have exorcised your ass when I had the chance.” Angel died when his best friend decided to take out the puta bitch vatos who’d invaded their turf by utilizing the drive-by technique of execution so popular with the kids today. Angel tried to stop him and paid the ultimate price. Much to my eternal chagrin.

  “You couldn’t exorcise a cat, much less a bad-to-the-bone Chicano with gunpowder in his blood. Besides, you hate exercise.”

  Chuckling at his own joke, he took my outstretched hand and pulled me onto the balls of my feet. I needed to stay squatted behind the Dumpster, the prime tactical position for an ambush. “You don’t have any blood,” I pointed out helpfully.

  “Sure I do,” he said, looking down at himself. He wore a dirty white T-shirt with jeans hanging low on his hips, worn-out sneakers, and a wide leather wristband. His inky black hair was cropped short over his ears, but he still had a baby face and a smile so genuine, it could melt my heart on contact. “It’s just kind of see-through now.”

  I scraped my hands down the side of the Dumpster to no avail, wondering how many germs were hitching a ride in the process. “Do you have a reason for being here?” I asked, now swiping my hands at my pants. The oil was obviously going to remain stuck until I found some water and a professional-grade degreaser.

  “I heard we got a case,” he said. While Angel had been a constant companion since my freshman days of high school, he agreed to become my lead investigator when I opened my PI business three years ago. Having an incorporeal being as an investigator was kind of like cheating on college entrance exams—nerve-racking yet oddly effective. And we’d solved many a case together.

  Facing no such quandaries with the oil slick, he sat down in front of me, his back against the Dumpster, his eyes suddenly drawn to my hand as I knocked the rocks and soil off my left butt cheek. “Can I help?” he asked, indicating my ass with a nod. Thirteen-year-olds were so hormonal. Even dead ones.

  “No, you can’t help, and we suddenly have not one, but two cases.” While Mimi was my professional priority, Reyes was my personal one. Neither was expendable, and I pondered which case I should put him on. I opted for Reyes because I simply didn’t have any other resources in that area. But Angel wasn’t going to like it.

  “How much do you know about Reyes?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t disappear. Or pull a nine-millimeter and gank me.

  He eyed me a moment, shifted uncomfortably, then rested his elbows on his knees and looked off into the distance. Or, well, into a warehouse. After a long while, he said, “Rey’aziel isn’t our case.”

  I sucked in a soft breath with the mention of Reyes’s otherworldly name. How did he know it? Better yet, how long had he known it?

  “Angel, do you know what Reyes is?”

  He shrugged. “I know what he isn’t.” He leveled an intent gaze on me. “He isn’t our case.”

  With a sigh, I sat on the pavement, slick or no slick, and leaned against the trash bin beside him. I needed Angel with me on this. I needed his help, his particular talents. After placing a dirty hand on his, I said, “If I don’t find him, he’s going to die.”

  A dubious chuckle shook his chest, and in that instant, he seemed so much older than the thirteen years he’d accumulated before he passed. “If only it were that easy.”

  “Angel,” I said, my tone admonishing. “You can’t mean that.”

  The look he stabbed me with was one of such anger, such incredulity, I fought the urge to lean away from him. “You can’t be serious,” he said as if I’d suddenly lost my marbles. Little did he know, I’d lost my marbles eons ago.

  I knew Angel didn’t like the guy, but I had no idea he felt such malevolence toward him.

  “Is there a reason you’re sitting in a puddle of oil talking to yourself?”

  I looked up to find Garrett Swopes standing over me, a dark-skinned, silvery-eyed skiptracer who knew just enough about me to be dangerous; then I glanced back at Angel. He was gone. Naturally. When the going gets tough, the tough refuse to talk about it and insist on running away to stew in their own crabby insecurities.

  I struggled to my feet and realized my jeans would never be the same again. “What are you doing here, Swopes?” I asked, swiping at my ass for the second time that morning.

  As skiptracers went, Garrett was one of the best. We’d been fairly decent friends for a while until Uncle Bob, in a moment of weakness brought on by one-too-many brewskis, told him what I did for a living. Not the PI part—Garrett already knew that—but the Charley-sees-dead-people part. After that, our slightly flirtatious relationship took a left turn into hostile territory, as though he were angry that I would try to pull off such a scheme. A month later, Garrett was slowly but surely—and quite reluctantly—beginning to believe in what I could do, having seen the evidence firsthand. Not that I gave a shit if he believed me or not, especially after his behavior over the last month, but Garrett was good at his job. He came in handy from time to time. As for the skeptic in him, he could bite my ass.

  At the moment, he seemed to be contemplating that very thing. He’d tilted his head and was eyeing the general vicinity of my lower half as I knocked dirt and rock chips off it when he asked, “Can I help?”

  “No, you can’t help.” Didn’t I just have this conversation? “Stop channeling Angel and answer my question. Wait.” Reality sank in slowly but surely. My jaw dropped for a moment before I caught it and turned on him. “Oh, my god, you’re the tail.”

  “What?” He stepped back, his brows drawn sharply together in denial.

  “Son of a bitch.” After staring aghast for a solid minute—thank goodness I’d recently practiced aghast in the mirror—I watched him try to disguise the guilt so plainly on his features. Then I threw a punch that landed on his shoulder with a solid thud.

  “Ouch.” He covered his shoulder protectively. “What the hell was that for?”

  “Like you don’t know,” I said, stalking away. I couldn’t believe it. I simply could not believe it. Well, I could, but still. Uncle Bob had actually put Garrett Swopes on my tail. Garrett Swopes! The same man who’d been taunting and badgering me about my ability for the last month, swearing to have me locked away or, at the very least, burned as a witch. Skeptics were such drama queens. And Uncle Bob put him on my tail?

  The injustice of it all. The indignation. The … wait. I stopped short and considered all the possibilities. All the wonderful, glorious possibilities.

  Garrett had been trailing behind me when I stopped and, his reaction time being what it was, almost ran me down. “Did you go off your meds again, Charles?” he asked, sidestepping around me while trying to change the subject. He’d taken to calling me Charles recently. Probably to annoy me, so I didn’t let it. And my meds were none of his concern.

  I turned, planted my best death stare on him, and said, “Oh, no, you don’t.”

  “What?”

  He stepped back. I stepped forward.

  “You aren’t getting off that easy, buddy boy,” I said, stabbing him with an index finger.

  The confused expression on his face would have been comical had I not felt so blindsided that my uncle put him, of all people, on my tail. And I was in dire need of an investigator who was on Albuquerque’s finest’s payroll. Free labor.

  “Did you just call me buddy boy?”

  “Damn straight I did, and if you know what’s good for you,” I said, taking another step toward him, “you won’t insult me for not coming up with anything better on such short notice.”

  “Okay.” He held up his hands in surrender. “No insults, I swear.”

  I trusted him about as far as I could throw him. He was totally going to insult me the first chance he got. Damn it. “How long have you been tailing me?”

  “Charles,” he said, trying to come up with a good story. />
  “Don’t even.” I poked him again for good measure. “How long?”

  “First…” He took hold of my shoulders and led me back toward the building as a car passed through the alley.

  When we were out of harm’s way, I crossed my arms and waited.

  With an acquiescent sigh, he admitted, “Since the day Farrow disappeared from the long-term-care unit.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath of indignation. “That was a week ago. You’ve been following me for a week? I can’t believe Uncle Bob did this to me.”

  “Charley,” Garrett began, his voice sympathetic. I didn’t need his sympathy.

  “Don’t. Ubie is so not getting a Christmas card this year.” When he spread his hands as if I were overreacting, I added, “And you can mark your name off the list as well.”

  “What did I do?” he asked, following me as I cut across a parking lot toward the street.

  “Stalking isn’t pretty, Swopes.”

  “It’s not stalking when you’re being paid for it.”

  I stopped and scowled at him.

  “Well, when PD is paying you, anyway. And your uncle Bob didn’t do anything to you. He figured there was a possibility Farrow would try to contact you, and for some unexplainable reason, he didn’t want a convicted murderer hanging with his niece.”

  Always with the convicted murderer rap. “I’ll make a deal with you.”

  “Okay,” he said, his voice tainted with suspicion.

  “I need to find Reyes as much as you do, or, well, Uncle Bob. You help me and I’ll help you.”

  “Why?” he asked, still suspicious. You’d think I never kept up my side of the bargain. I almost always, nigh 100 percent of the time, tried really hard to attempt to hold up my side of any bargain in any given situation.

  Now for the hard part, the yeah-I-know-he-was-convicted-of-murder-and-is-an-entity-who-was-born-of-pure-evil-but-deep-down-inside-he’s-really-a-good-guy part. “What all did Uncle Bob tell you about Reyes?”

  Garrett’s brows knitted in thought, his gray eyes startling against his dark skin. “Well, in a nutshell, he told me Farrow has been a resident of the Penitentiary of New Mexico for the last ten years for the brutal murder of his own father until he was accidently shot in the head trying to save another inmate and was in a coma for a month, only to magically wake up and walk right out of the long-term-care unit without anyone the wiser.”

  I let that soak in before commenting. “Okay, good start. But there’s a lot my uncle doesn’t know.”

  With mouth tilting to the side in doubt, he asked, “Which would be?”

  Great. He was reverting back to Garrett the Skeptic Skiptracer. “Reyes Farrow has saved my life on several occasions. And he continues to do so.”

  “Really?” he said, the sarcasm in his tone undeniable. This was not going to be an easy sell.

  “Yes, really.” A car behind me wanting the parking space we were standing in honked. I headed toward the street again.

  “A man convicted of murder saves you?”

  “Yes.” When we reached the sidewalk, I stopped and gave him my full attention. “And he’s a supernatural being.”

  His mouth did that tilty thing again, but he decided to humor me. “You mean like ghost supernatural or superhero supernatural?”

  Good question. “A little of both, actually.”

  He sighed and raked his fingers through his hair.

  “Look, I don’t have time to go into all the details,” I said, charging forward. “Can you do something crazy for once in your life that goes against every bone in your body and trust me on this one?”

  After a long moment, he offered a reluctant nod.

  “Good, because I need to find him ay-sap.”

  I started for my apartment. Clean jeans were a must for any private investigator. And for said private investigator’s sanity.

  “Wait.”

  “Nope. Follow.”

  “Okay,” he said, jogging to catch up. He fell in step beside me. “So, Farrow is supernatural? You mean like you? He’s a grim reaper?”

  His question surprised me. I didn’t think he’d believed a word I told him during our last sit-down. The one where he tried really hard to open his mind and listen to what I had to say instead of mocking me repeatedly. “He’s not a grim reaper. He’s sort of more.”

  “How much more?” Suspicion suddenly edged his voice.

  “He’s a man, Swopes, just like you. Only, like, with superpowers.”

  “What kind of superpowers?”

  I paused long enough to glower at him. “Would you stop with the twenty questions?”

  “I just want to know what I’m up against.”

  “Look, I just need you to put out some feelers. You know, ask around, see if anyone has heard anything, I don’t know, strange.”

  “Fine. I just have one more question.”

  “Okay.”

  His gaze intensified. “How do I kill it?” he asked.

  Well, that wasn’t very nice. All this time, I’d been hoping evolution had eroded the male’s thirst for blood. Apparently not. “You don’t,” I said, turning back to continue my trek. I was brought up short when a dark fog, thick and undulating, materialized into a man in front of me.

  Reyes stood blocking my path, a peculiar kind of anger glistening in his mahogany eyes. “What are you doing, Dutch?” he asked, his voice soft, menacing.

  Garrett had taken a step then stopped again. He glanced at me and then down the street, trying to figure out what I was looking at.

  I decided to ignore both his curiosity and Reyes’s anger for the moment. “Are you still alive?”

  He took an intimidating step closer, heat radiating from his body in waves. “Unfortunately. What are you doing?”

  “Charles, what’s up?” Garrett asked, alarmed.

  Relief flooded through me with Reyes’s admission. He could die at any moment, and I was worried it might already have happened. I tried to breathe easier, but the palpability of his anger made that difficult. I should have known he was still alive. He wouldn’t have been so angry if not. Who cares if I find his body once it has passed? The mere thought tightened my chest even more.

  My face must have shown my alarm. Garrett leaned into me. “Charley, what’s going on?”

  Reyes glanced at him then back at me. “Tell it to shut up.”

  And that was just rude. These boys were not playing well together at all. Reyes had grown jealous of Garrett without reason. There was nothing whatsoever between us. “He’s not an it, Reyes,” I said, practically inviting him to argue. “He’s the best skiptracer in the state, and he’s going to help me find you.” The gauntlet I threw at him made me sound like a third grader on a playground challenging the school bully to a showdown. Swings. Three o’clock.

  A slow smile spread across Reyes’s face as he looked back at Garrett, sized him up with one glance, then returned his attention to me. “How’s its spine?”

  The question took my breath away. It was an open threat, one he knew I would take to heart. He had severed more than one spinal column in my behalf, why not in his own? I eased back and he followed, sustaining a minimum of six inches between us. He was not giving in. He knew how to intimidate me, how to cut with the skill of a veteran surgeon.

  “You can’t possibly mean that,” I said when I stopped, deciding the backing-away thing wasn’t working.

  “If he even thinks about trying to find me, his last years on this Earth will be … fraught with difficulties.”

  His threat was so hostile, so finite, it ripped at my insides. I had no idea he could hurt so callously. I squared my shoulders and looked up at him, determination raising my chin. “Fine. He won’t start searching for you,” I said, and the victory shone in his eyes. “But I won’t stop.”

  Just as quickly, the smugness evaporated and he scowled at me once more.

  I took a bold step closer, practically wrapping myself into his arms. He let me, welcomed me, letting
his guard down for just a moment.

  “Are you going to sever my spine,” I asked, watching his eyes linger on my mouth, “Rey’aziel?”

  It was his turn to be shocked. He stiffened completely, his features unwavering, but I felt the turmoil, the agitation churn inside him. Just as he could read my emotions, I could read his, and right now they could have caused the earth to shake beneath us.

  Garrett said something, but I found myself drowning in the apprehension that saturated Reyes’s liquid brown eyes. It was almost as if I’d betrayed him somehow, stabbed a knife into his back. But hadn’t he just done that very thing to me? And besides, I rarely carried knives.

  “How do you know that name?” he asked, his voice soft, dangerous, as if it were more a threat than a question.

  I gathered all the bravery I could muster to answer him. “A friend told me,” I said, praying I wasn’t inadvertently putting Pari’s life at risk. “She said she summoned you when she was young, and you almost ripped her leg off.”

  “Charley, I’m trying here, but maybe we could take this somewhere else.”

  It was Garrett. He was apparently trying to intervene, to make it look like he and I were having a conversation instead of what it would look like to the casual observer, a psycho girl talking to air. For a split second I focused on my periphery, noticed the odd glance here and the frown of disapproval there. But for the most part, people ignored us. We were on Central in the middle of Albuquerque. It wasn’t like the natives hadn’t seen such behavior before.

  When I felt two hands push me softly, leading me back against the brick wall of a sidewalk café, I refocused on the being in front of me. “Was that you?” I asked, returning to our conversation. “Did you hurt Pari?”

  He braced both hands on the wall behind us and pressed his body against mine. That’s what he did. When threatened, when intimidated, he pushed. He shoved. And he chose his opponent’s weakest point. Went for the jugular every time. Used my attraction against me with the skill of an artist. It was fighting dirty, but I could hardly blame him. It was what he’d grown up with. It was all he knew.